


Get It In Writing

by lynnkn



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Ronan Lynch & Blue Sargent Friendship, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:40:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28102572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lynnkn/pseuds/lynnkn
Summary: Ronan comes back to Henrietta to spend time with his best friend and to find inspiration. He never planned on Adam.
Relationships: Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Comments: 2
Kudos: 59
Collections: Pynch Secret Santa 2020





	Get It In Writing

**Author's Note:**

> Here’s my Pynch Secret Santa for betterwithoutsense on tumblr. Hope you enjoy!

Ronan was always an outdoorsy type. His mind moved faster when the world around him moved slower. He liked New York, but it was never meant to be his home.

He had come up with the idea to move back home, drunk out of his mind on a Tuesday, after weeks of trying and failing to churn out so much as a short story, let alone a novel. He hadn’t had an original idea since he was fifteen. It made perfect sense if he didn’t think about it too much. At fifteen, he’d created some of his most original ideas, he crafted plots so intricate they made his adult self weep with jealousy. Characters had come to him like dreams. Nothing he’d written since Declan swept him and Matthew off to Alexandria had come close to the stuff he’d scribbled in frayed notebooks between lessons.

If he did let himself think about it, he’d wonder if it had less to do with the change in locale and more to do with his parents’ deaths.

He’d called Blue the next morning. She offered him the couch at her mother’s house while he looked for a place. He calls her again just as the plane lands.

“Don’t hate me,” are the first words out of her mouth.

“Oh, I love when you start conversations like that.”

“I’m stuck at work.” There’s a shuffling and a crash from the other end of the line, followed by voices. At least three of them are yelling out for Blue. “We’re understaffed. Three people quit last week and I’m the only manager left.”

He makes plans to call an Uber as soon as they land. He hates to do it, but he’s left without much of a choice. He’d avoided taxis and the like for most of his time in the city, but every time he did it, it felt wrong. His skin prickled and pulled like even it knew he did not belong in the backseat of someone else’s car.

“But I sent my cousin to pick you up at baggage claim,” Blue says.

“Alright,” he says. “I’ll see you at the house?”

“Yes, definitely! I’ll see you tonight.”

“And thanks for all this.”

“No problem, Ronan.” She huffs a breathy sigh and the phone crackles as she leans in closer to whisper. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too shithead.”

Ronan had met plenty of Blue’s cousins. While the girls come in all shapes, sizes, and colors, they have names like Orla or Chrysanthemum. They wear mismatched clothing and make art out of recycled materials. They’re all indiscriminately weird. He feels confident in his ability to pick a Sargent out of a line-up.

The baggage claim is a confusing swirl of business suits and combat uniforms. He walks past a family carrying a giant banner. But he recognizes none of them. There are no floor-length skirts, no dyed hair. He pulls out his phone to call Blue back when a voice calls out his name. He turns, but he can’t make out who it is. Then he sees him.

He’s leaning against a half-wall, hands tucked into his pockets and a denim jacket tossed over his shoulder. He pushes off with his foot and approaches cautiously. He’s waiting for an answer.

“Yeah,” Ronan coughs out. He’s proud of his own tact and grace for the briefest flash before he opens his mouth again. “Who the fuck are you?”

“Blue said she’d call you.” He shuffles for a moment, grabbing desperately at his phone. “I’m Adam. I’m gonna take you back to the house if that’s cool.”

“It’s fine, man. You’re just not who I expected.”

“Well,” he says, starting a sentence he clearly never plans to finish. “You got bags?”

“Yeah. Wait here. I’ll get them.”

Adam takes the large suitcase and reaches for the duffel, but Ronan shakes his head. Adam shrugs and leads the way to the car. Ronan pulls the bag onto his shoulder and flinches as the bag bangs angrily against his stiff muscles. He moves through the pain, desperately hoping Adam can’t tell he’s struggling.

“So how are you related to Blue again?” he asks, desperate for a distraction.

“Uh, I’m Persephone’s kid.”

He remembers Persephone, long white hair, and a soft-spoken voice. She baked pies and could speak with some level of authority on any topic a person brought up. But she hadn’t had any children that he knew of. And he’s sure he’d remember Adam.

“Oh. Sure.”

“It’s an adoption thing,” he says like he’s not outrageously uncomfortable.

“That’s cool,” Ronan says like he wasn’t wondering. He doesn’t want to push so he lets the conversation float away. He’s a big fan of comfortable silence. The issue is that nothing about this situation is comfortable and he’s drowning in his own goddamn bullshit. He follows Adam to a monstrosity of parts but resists the urge to comment. This clearly isn’t the kind of car a person chooses for themselves. They exchange nervous smiles over the trunk and settle into their seats.

Adam clearly knows where he’s going so Ronan settles back in his seat, watching D.C.fade away. When the world turns green, he lets himself feel at home.

“Blue talks about you a lot,” Adam says.

And that’s the funny thing because he’s talked to Blue a lot in the years since he left, but she’s never mentioned Adam. He searches his memory for any mention or comment on the addition of a new cousin, but there’s nothing. He’d told her about every gruesome, gory detail of his move to Alexandria, of school, and Declan, and Matthew. And then when he’d moved to New York, he’d told her about his building and the shitty people he talked to and he’d laid all this on the line without considering that she was still in Henrietta and her family was changing and he didn’t even know. Why hadn’t she told him? He only lets it sting for a moment. Then he numbs it with a promise to talk to her later.

“Yeah,” he says. “She’s my best friend.”

They don’t talk much more on the drive, but Ronan watches Adam out of the corner of his eye. He’s the kind of guy a teenaged version of himself would’ve fantasized over. His hands grip the wheel and his tongue sticks out the side of his mouth as he focuses on the road. His eyebrows hang heavily over weary eyes. He’s a strange guy, a unique blend of old and young, of new and refurbished. He’s a lot like the car he drives and Ronan wonders if this body is also the kind no one chooses for themselves. But he can't stop staring nonetheless.

The house looks like itself when they pull up and a strange warmth pools through his gut. He breaths in the air as he steps out of the car. It’s lighter here. The air hits the bottom of his lungs and he pulls another breath in just to hold it there. To breathe. If he forgets, he can pretend he’s fourteen and coming over to borrow a cd. Or that he’s ten and coming to watch a movie his parents wouldn’t let him watch. Or that he’s seven and going over to play at a friend’s house for the first time in his life. He could stand out there all day, but he wants to see Maura so he hauls the stupidly heavy duffel over his shoulder and goes inside.

“Ronan? Is that you? Get your ass in here.” Maura’s voice blends with the hum of the laundry machine and children screaming somewhere down the hall and it’s a sound so wrapped in nostalgia, Ronan can’t remember what year it is. He follows the sound to the kitchen where she waits with open arms. He leans down to let her pull him into a hug. Behind him, the screen door slams as Adam comes in behind him, but he doesn’t pull away. “How’ve you been?” she asks, finally pushing him back to take in the sight of him.

“I’m alright.”

“You’re staying with us for a while?”

“Is that a problem?”

“You know it’s not.” She turns back to the counter in front of her. She has a sheet of pepperoni rolls half wrapped and lined up on a strip of parchment paper. She grabs the dough and goes back to work as Ronan leans against the counter, watching her fingers delicately shaping the rolls. “We’re a lot nicer to the boys than we used to be, right Adam?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he says brushing past both of them on his way out the back.

“Oh I’m convinced,” Ronan says.

Adam stops and quirks a quiet smile, the kind Ronan wasn’t supposed to see. He turns back to them. “I promised Calla I’d fix the porch rail.”

“It can wait if you want some lunch," Maura says. 

“I’d rather finish it up before class.” He looks like an animal caught in a trap, leaning towards the back door and letting his eyes wander out the window. “But I’ll take a pepperoni roll when I’m finished if you’re offering.”

She nods at him and this seems to be a dismissal because he’s out the door before Ronan can blink. As soon as he’s gone, though, Ronan is thinking about him again. About how strange he is and how much stranger he seems in a house like this. He shouldn’t fit in and yet, everything about him makes sense.

Ronan washes his hands and picks up a strip of dough, following Maura’s gentle instructions. She reaches over and fixes each roll he makes, but he doesn’t mind. He lets her fix his mistakes with no more than an overdramatic eye roll. And she doesn’t comment on his lack of manners. Maura never expected him to be polite, so long as he was kind.

* * *

Blue doesn’t make it home for another two hours. By that time, Ronan is full of pepperoni rolls and Adam has gone to class. He waits for her on the porch and she runs and jumps into his arms the moment she sees him. He picks her up, sweeping her feet out from under her. He’d hit a growth spurt a month after leaving town and hadn’t stopped until he was ducking in doorways.

She startles, but he’s strong and he’d chop his own arms off before he hurt her.

Blue and Ronan had been the weird kids of their homeschool co-op. She yelled about the patriarchy during history and he knew more about Irish folklore than algebra. She hissed at the other kids and he hit anyone who made fun of her.

“I knew you’d come home eventually,” she says.

“Then you must be psychic cause I didn’t know until last month.” He hugs her and she still smells like the tree in the backyard and pixie sticks. All is right with the world. She doesn’t look all that different either. She grew maybe another inch or two, but all-in-all, she’s still what he remembers. He wonders if she’s disappointed cause he sure as hell isn’t the Ronan she knew.

The passenger side door shuts and a man climbs out. His hair is neatly combed and his shirt is ironed. He sweeps a hand over his tie and waves at the two of them.

Blue waves back. She glances over her shoulder at Ronan, hesitant and curious. She waits for a reaction, but Ronan has nothing to say. He watches, slack-jawed and stupid as the man approaches. He kisses Blue on the cheek and offers Ronan his hand.

“You must be Ronan,” he says. They shake hands, a sweaty affair that Ronan pulls away from as soon as he gets the chance. “I’m Gansey.”

“Can you give us a minute?” Blue says. He grins back at her and then at Ronan, slipping into the house, leaving silence in his wake.

“Anything else you wanna tell me?”

“Well John Boy, things have changed here on Walton’s mountain.” She laughs at her own joke, watching for Ronan to join her. When he doesn’t she sighs. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You were miserable, Ronan,” she says. “And don’t say you weren’t I could tell. I just didn’t want to rub it in your face.”

“You still should’ve told me.” It burns, like every other little hurt. These days, Ronan can’t seem to feel anything a normal amount. Every prick is a white-hot scorch. Every ache is a broken bone. One day the floor fell beneath him and the pain gets worse every time he hits another level of concrete and earth.

Blue nods and she turns, just enough to the side so Ronan can’t parse out her face. He can’t read her anymore. And so he falls again.

“And what about Adam?” he asks.

“What about him?”

Ronan’s not even sure himself. But he shows up in the same shitty town he’s always lived in and he comes back to a place that had once been his second home and this guy is here, just waiting and he’s everything Ronan thought he’d wanted back then. His perspective is tilting. He thinks about the guys back in New York: Proko, Skov, Swan, and Jiang. He thinks of Kavinsky and how much sense they made. He thinks Adam seems like the kind of guy who’s going to get him hurt. He thinks of how much he’d love to let someone like Adam hurt him.

“Why didn’t you tell me about him?”

“I didn’t know how to,” she says. “It’s not my story to tell.”

“Then why send him to pick me up?” Ronan leans into her, watching for a flicker of something recognizable. The Blue he’d known never lied to him. She was honest, sometimes brutally so and she never hid anything from him. They’d talked constantly over the years. And while he’d unloaded all of his bullshit on her, she’s remained mysterious in regards to her own life.

“I think you’ll like him,” she says. “He needs someone like you.”

“I’m not trying to fuck your cousin, Blue.”

“I’m not suggesting you fuck him. I just thought you could be friends.” She rubs her hand over her eyes, pulling her features in a sharp downturn. “I was gonna say the same about Gansey.”

He lets the breath out of his cheeks and watches the wind blow through the grass. It's grown long, just the way Blue likes it. He lets the wind move him like the grass, swaying gently until he feels grounded. He’s not mad at Blue. Not really. “I’m sorry,” he says.

“I just want to make sure you have a support system here.”

“I do,” he says.

“Besides me and my mom.” She wipes at her eye again and Ronan graciously ignores the single tear.

He gestures to the door and the family waiting inside. “Well then let’s go.”

Blue smiles and Ronan remembers why he’s here in the first place. Blue is something stronger, more prominent than anything in New York. She makes him stronger, louder. It’s not just about Henrietta or the mountains. It’s in Blue’s smiles and Maura’s eyes and the strangeness of them all. This is where his story is waiting for him. It’s always been here. Ronan is the one who left.

Soon they’re all sat around the table for dinner. The conversation is light and easy. No one pushes Ronan to talk about what he’s been doing in New York and he’s eternally grateful for that. They talk about Blue’s job at Nino’s and Gansey’s parents’ real estate business. He promises to help Ronan check out some of the properties in the area. Adam excuses himself early, claiming he has to get up early for work in the morning.

“What do you do?” Ronan asks, helping Maura clear the table.

“I work at the Greenmantles’ farm up in Singer Falls,” he says. And Ronan feels his heart drop all the way to his ass. “It’s this really old shitty family farm that this guy bought a few years ago. And he has no idea how to run a farm so it’s a disaster.”

“Oh,’ Ronan says. “That’s my house.”

Adam’s eyes widen to twice their regular size. “I…”

“It was always kind of shitty,” he says.

“Yeah.” Adam stands awkwardly behind his chair, perhaps waiting for an appropriate time to bolt. Ronan breaks eye contact, hoping to put him at ease.

But the idea of his home, fallen into disrepair bothers him more than he expected. He remembers the Greenmantles. He doesn’t remember them fondly. He turns to go outside for another breath of fresh air. As he heads for the door, Ronan hears the exchange between Adam and his mother.

“You couldn’t have told me he lived there before I opened my mouth?”

“I could’ve,” she says, placing a palm on the top of his head. She plants a kiss on it and walks to the sink to wash out her mug. Adam, for what it’s worth, smacks his head against the doorframe.

* * *

He spends the next night, sitting on the blanket with Blue and Adam and their friends. Gansey’s there, as is his friend Henry. Noah, one of Blue’s coworkers turns up with beer. And they sit in the grass watching the stars. It’s not until they’ve been laying there for a couple of hours, laughing and teasing like they’ve always been this way, that Ronan realizes how much he needs this.

As the others trickle inside for air conditioning or food or sleep, Ronan and Adam are left alone for the first time since the car ride.

“Why do I get the feeling you don’t like me very much,” Adam says.

“It’s not that,” Ronan says, hands folded behind his head. The stars are duller here in Henrietta proper, but it’s the closest to home he’s gotten in years. “I just realized Blue hasn’t been telling me shit. I didn’t know about you. It’s not personal.”

“That’s probably my fault. I told her not to tell people.” He bunches a corner of the blanket in a tight fist, before releasing it and smoothing it back out. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.”

“I just…” He stops, just long enough that Ronan doesn’t think he ever plans to finish the sentence. Then he groans like he’s forcing the truth from someplace buried within him. “Things weren’t good at home so when Persephone offered…”

“You don’t have to explain yourself.”

“Still,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s all good.”

The beer is warm and settling in Ronan’s stomach in that way that makes him a little worried sometimes, so he sets it aside. He closes his eyes and reminds himself why he stops. Because it would be so easy to keep going. But he actually likes talking to Adam, and he thinks he might even want to remember this conversation in the morning.

“Blue said you’re a writer?” he asks.

This is a tightrope. Ronan calls himself a writer. His father had called him a writer. Even Declan, for all his infuriating nagging, calls Ronan a writer. But he has nothing to show for it. Nothing’s proud of. People use to ask him this and he’d pull out notebooks full of stories. Sometimes he’d just recite stories from memory like Niall once had. But now, he has nothing to show for the title. He’d trusted the story was here, buried in the hills of Henrietta, sleeping, waiting.

“I guess I am,” he says.

“What do you write?”

“Fantasy.” It’s one of the oldest truths he has to give.

“Only fantasy?” Adam asks. “Never anything else?”

Ronan shakes his head. He’d never had much use for anything else. He’d grown up with his father's stories, grandiose and ridiculous. He’d never conformed to the rules of the mortal world and Rona’s narrative imagination took the hint and ran with it. He silently begs Adam not to ask about his work anymore. Hopes to God he won’t ask to read anything. And he doesn’t. Instead, he tips his head up toward the sky, eyes tracing patterns of stars overhead.

“Tell me something about you,” Ronan says when the silence lingers too long.

“Like what?” He doesn’t move, chin tipped up the heavens and Ronan studies the curve of his jaw.

“Anything true,” he says.

“I’m deaf in my right ear.”

“Really?”

“No,” he says. He’s got a gentle smirk that charms Ronan more than he’s willing to admit. “It’s my left.”

“Can you hear me okay now?”

“Yeah,” he says. “It’s quiet.”

* * *

The summer passes in hazy waves, washing over him every few weeks as he watches time slip away. He’s done nothing. He’s written nothing. But he tours properties with Gansey and makes art with Blue. He buys a skateboard and lets Noah teach him a few tricks and he let Henry take him to Henrietta’s newest and only gay bar. It’s not the best summer of his life, but it comes pretty damn close.

And then there’s Adam who listens better than anyone he knows. They sit together, nearly every day, either on the porch or in the kitchen. Sometimes they drive miles away from the house in Adam's car, away from Henrietta and they park and they talk.

He tells Adam about the farm and Adam tells him about the trailer. He talks about Declan’s nagging texts about college and Adam talks about using the money from the Greenmantles to pay for classes and textbooks at the local community college.

In September, Adam’s car falls to shit in the driveway and several hours under the hood aren’t enough to fix it so Ronan drives him to work in Maura's car, promising to bring it back immediately so no one got stranded at the house. 

He follows the gravel driveway, following the curves and dips just as he had once upon a time. He doesn’t watch Adam, but he can feel himself being watched. “This is where I’m gonna live,” he says, pulling in behind a car too shiny and new to fit in with its surroundings. “I don’t want to buy another place.”

“You mean this is it?” He looks over his shoulder out the window and Ronan watches the line of his shoulder crease. If he could, he’d trace a finger over, push in where the skin dips beneath bone. He turns back before Ronan can pull his gaze away. “This is your perfect house?”

“Is that so hard to believe?”

“No. I guess I just assumed this place would be…”

“Traumatic?”

“Honestly? Yeah.” Adam's gaze floats back to the open field. Ronan can't tell if the expression is jealousy or pity. Maybe it's both. “You don’t see my buying my childhood home.”

“I loved that house. I loved the farm. I could get cattle.”

“You’re gonna buy cows?”

“No, but I could if I had this place.”

“You could always ask if they’d be willing to sell?”

“You work for the guy. Do you think he’d sell it to me?”

He doesn’t answer, just watches the house, eyes full of hope or envy or something dangerous like that. When he turns back, the light of the sunset hits his face and everything seems right. Ronan can picture them sitting on the porch, sipping tea or bourbon on the front porch. He wants this. He wants him. He wants, wants, wants so much it hurts. He reaches, but the whole world lays on a shelf above him, just out of reach.

His mother used to hide cookies on the top shelf, saving them for after dinner. When he closes his eyes, Ronan can see his father’s arm stretched upward pulling the cookie jar down to Ronan. “Just one,” he’d whisper and they’d never speak of it again. Until the next time.

Adam leans forward, pressing warm lips into his and it’s that hand reaching out to him, pulling things down to him that once seemed so impossible he could cry.

He nearly does when Adam pulls away, slowly with a single breath. It was a period, not a comma. It was a thought, not an answer. They let themselves freeze, both leaning over the center console to breathe against one another’s collarbones. This was impossible.

“Do you wanna come look around?” Adam asks.

“Isn’t that a little risky?”

“Mr. And Mrs. Greenmantle aren’t home,” he says. He leans over to unlock Ronan’s seatbelt and the feel of Adam’s arm brushing against his stomach could convince him of almost anything.

“Okay,” he says.

Adam takes him by the hand and leads him around the house, past the empty cow pastures and the shiny new silo. He introduces him to Mr. Gray and the other farmhands and they regale Ronan with stories about Adam at work that make his cheeks flush bright pink. 

They climb up the hill and past the old storage shed, just the two of them.

“That thing’s still around?”

“Yeah. It’s old as shit. I can tell.” Adam kicks up some gravel and a small cloud forms around his ankles. “A lot of the old equipment up there’s never been used. Greenmantle just leaves it lying around and sends me up there twice a week to look for something.”

“Yeah. That roof leaks every spring.”

“I know. I keep bugging him to have someone look at it.” He shrugs, the noncommittal gesture of someone who is used to being ignored. Ronan takes care to grip his shoulder with a weighted strength. And he looks at this guy, so fucking beautiful and so capable, and wonders how anyone could see him in any other light.

“Show me the house,” he says, wrapping his other arm around Adam’s waist.

“We’re gonna get caught.”

“Then we’ll have to be fast,” Ronan says. “Lucky for you, fast is my specialty.”

“Stop,” he says. He pushes away, without a second glance and bolts for the barn as soon as he’s out of Ronan’s grip.

“Hey,” Ronan calls after him. He watches as Adam turns, pulling anxiously at his bangs as they flop into his face. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. I just miss this place.”

He thinks of the smell of cinnamon in the kitchen and the dent Declan’s head made in the hardwood and the green slime stain on the carpet in Matthew’s room. He wants it back even for a moment. He wants it more than anything. Anything except Adam.

But Adam pulls another breath into his lungs and says. “Okay, but we have to be quick.”

He takes Ronan’s hand in his, leading him toward the house, pulling at his finger and the heat trapped between their palms travels all the way up Ronan’s arm. He lets himself be dragged until they reach the porch. He pulls a key from the sconce and opens the front door. The same one Ronan remembered. He could picture his mother, standing in the foyer if he focused.

The craziness of it all strikes him as he stands there. He thought he’d never see this place again, but he’s standing there and he’s so close to what he wants and yet so far. So he pulls Adam in for another kiss, this one messier, hungrier. He buries his hands in the hair on the back of Adam’s neck.

“What are you doing here?”

Ronan turns back to the open door and there is Greenmantle in all his smarmy glory. Ronan previously thought his teenage memories had exaggerated, but he was clearly right all along. This guy simply looks like a bastard.

“Sir,” Adam says. It’s a plea, a desperate Hail Mary from someone Ronan once thought was too proud for such things.

“Get out,” he says. He holds his hand out and Adam slowly drops the keys. He doesn’t look at Greenmantle or Ronan. He watches his feet. Ronan can’t help but watch him. “And don’t come back. You’re done.”

They don’t talk on the way back to the car. There is nothing to say. Adam slams the door as he sits. He makes a sound, so low, so guttural, Ronan would’ve thought it came from one of the animals.

“You took it too far. I lost my job, Ronan!”

“I know that.” He puts his keys in the ignition and lets the engine roar to life under them. He feels better, but Adam clearly doesn’t. “I’m sorry.”

“If I don’t have a job, I can’t keep paying for school.”

“Listen, I know. I’ll help you. It’s not like I’m gonna let your freeze out there.”

“Oh yeah, cause your dream comes before everything else, huh? What about my dream?” He takes a harsh breath and hunches over the dash, refusing to meet Ronan’s eyes. It’s possible there are tears, but Ronan feels too guilty to look more closely.

“What fucking dream, Parrish? Your big dream is to spend the rest of your life slaving away so some dipshit in suit and tie gets to summer in Guam. That’s not a dream. That’s a nightmare.”

“It’s better than this.” He drops his head to his knees, burying his face. He has nothing to worry about. Ronan couldn’t look at his face if wanted to. “I can’t keep doing this.”

“Then let help you find something better.”

“This is why you don’t know anything about Blue. You’re too caught up in your own bullshit to realize the rest of us have stuff going on too.”

He drives Adam back to the house without another word. He doesn’t go inside. He doesn’t want to see anyone else. He wants to drive. He takes the backroads too fast and the curves too sharp. He lets the road lead him to the convenience store just up the road. At least he saves the whiskey until he gets back to the house.

* * *

When he wakes in the morning, he doesn’t remember much after he got back. But he’s on the porch, back aching and head throbbing instead of tucked away on the couch, so he’s willing to bet it didn’t go well. Maura is sipping tea at the kitchen table. “Wanna tell me what you were doing out there? With my car?”

He shakes his head. He tests his voice, but it’s rough and gravely. He clears it into his fist before trying again. “Is Adam here?”

“He went to talk to Greenmantle.” She sips her tea again, placing it beside her. She looks up, trying to look him in the eyes, but Ronan stares at the table, the floor, anything but her face. She gives up, crossing the room to fill a glass with water from the sink “Blue and the boys went with him,” she says, handing it to him. "they said they were going to get his job back."

He sips at it cautiously. It lands in his stomach with a splash, so he stops, letting it settle before sipping again. “I need to go see him.”

“Is that a good idea?”

He drains the rest of the glass in one gulp and sets the glass back on the table. “I don’t know,” he says. With a clearer head and a couple of Ibuprofen, he hops in his car and prays for one more miracle.

Mr. Gray is there when the BMW crawls up the drive. He directs Ronan to the old shed, before reminding him to not get caught.

Adam’s got the door to the shed propped open so he sees Ronan coming from a mile away. “Go,” he says once they’re close enough to talk without yelling.

“Parrish, I just wanted to apologize.”

“Don’t pull a muscle.”

“I’m trying to act like a grown-up here. Would you come talk to me?”

“Talking to you got me stuck up here _cataloging inventory_ in the first place. I had to beg for my job back.” He drops an ax beside him with a resounding crack that catches them both off guard. They stare at each other for a moment, caught up in their confusion before Adam turns back to his work. Ronan can’t look away. “Just leave me alone. We can talk tonight.”

The crack returns followed by a crash and Adam’s head dips beneath the stacked crates without time to so much as scream.

“Parrish!”

He rushes forward, forgetting to consider the already fragile flooring. It bends and moans in front of him. He pulls back, leaning over the boxes to get a view of the hole, slowly spreading as bits of wood flake off. “Parrish?” he yells begging his friend or God for an answer.

Both God and Adam seem to have other plans as Greenmantle rounds the corner. “What the hell was that sound? What are you doing here?”

“Parrish, can you hear me?” He waits for an answer. A beat. Nothing. He’s not a patient guy, but he waits for a second longer, prays for so much as a grunt or groan, but nothing. “He fell through.”

“What do you mean he feel through?”

“I’m not a fucking contractor. He fell through the fucking floor. What else do you need to know?”

Mr. Gray is there in an instant. He stays back graciously and doesn’t seem interested outside the basics. “Is he responding?”

“No,” Ronan says. He thanks God that someone else is taking over the situation because he's beginning to feel horribly unqualified. “I think he’s unconscious.”

“Do you have your phone on you?”

“No. I left it in my car.”

Mr. Gray turns to Greenmantle wordlessly. The two exchange looks that seem to cycle through an entire exasperated conversation before Greenmantle spits out “I don’t have service out here.”

“Ronan?” Blue yells, rushing forward. Henry, Noah, and Gansey follow her. He holds out a hand to keep them back. He watches the hole, waiting for it to spread, and feels it bobble beneath him. He’s not safe either and he knows it, but if someone else comes inside, they’re definitely fucked. He looks at her though and the unshed tears in her eyes undo him.

He doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know if he can say anything. He’s trapped leaning over a hole and Parrish is trapped and the whole world is pulling in toward him and he doesn’t have the strength to fight it off. Still, he says “I’m okay. But if I move the rest of this place is gonna cave in on him.”

Gansey runs up behind her, wrapping his arms around her. He tucks her into his chest and they both stare back, discomfort clear in their eyes. They flash him matching encouraging smiles through the fear.

“I’m gonna call 911,” Henry yells, sprinting back across the field from where he came. No one stops to thank him.

“Is this really necessary?” Greenmantle asks.

“It may be a while before anyone makes it out here,” Mr. Gray says. “Ronan, if we can get you out, they’ll be able to get to Adam quicker. Can you sit down where you are?”

Ronan pushes a box of small garden tools off to the side, clearing enough of a path for him to sit down. He lowers himself gently, holding his breath the whole way down. He doesn’t release until his ass hits the floor.

“Good,” Mr. Gray says. He leans forward, peering over the mess to meet his eyes. Ronan sees his own fear and panic reflected in the man’s eyes. “Now roll onto your stomach, okay? You’re gonna crawl.”

He pushed himself over, turning as slow as he could. The floor groaned again beneath him. “This isn’t working. This is all gonna end up on top of him.”

“No. It’s not. You’re going to crawl toward me. You ever play army guy when you were a kid? It’s just like that. Keep your stomach on the ground and crawl.”

Ronan crawls. He can't see the other from the ground, but he can hear them talking around him. 

“We can’t get to Adam until we’ve got him safe," Mr. Gray says. His voice is calm, but in the overly-controlled way that indicates a person is not actually calm at all. “If we tear down that back wall, we may be able to dig through to him.”

“We might just end up staking more debris on top of him,” Greenmantle says. 

“I don’t know how else to access him.”

“There’s a crawlspace,” Ronan says. He pulls himself past an old ladder, taking care to avoid rusty nails and a suspicious stain. He thinks about his last tetanus shot and decides a booster couldn't hurt. 

“What?” Greenmantle leans down to stare at Ronan through a gap. Ronan ignores his furrowed brow and exasperated tone.

“There’s a crawlspace underneath.” He pulls himself another inch and Gansey is there offering a hand. He takes it graciously and Gansey pulls him the last few inches off the foundation and through the doorway. Mr. Gray leans over and tugs on his other hand pulling him up. He’s still coughing from the dust and panic as he throws himself around the corner of the building to the small wooden door.

The deadbolt gives way with little fuss despite the copious amounts of rust around it. “Adam?” he yells into the entrance, but there’s still no response.

“I’m little,” Blue says. “I can fit more easily.”

“You’re not dressed for it. There’s ticks and shit down there.” He hurriedly tucks his jeans into his boots and slides through the door before anyone can stop him.

He can see the damage as soon as his eyes adjust to the dark. And then he’s army crawling again. He pulls himself forward, pushing past bugs and dirt and what he thinks was once a raccoon. He crawls until he reaches and a chunk of wood too big to move. He has no leverage in the slim space around him. He can barely push himself up. His shoulders are squished in too tight to move anything heavy. He kicks himself for not thinking of a better plan. He crawls around the wood, blinking dust from his eyes and searching for any sign of Adam.

He peeks past the beam to see a clear space on the other side. He sees the ax to his left. He’s here. He’s somewhere in this place. He’s so close Ronan could touch him except he’s hidden and not responding. “Adam?” he yells one last time.

There’s a groan, soft and pained, but a groan nonetheless.

“Ronan? Can you hear us?” Mr. Gray yells.

“Yeah,” he calls back. “Kinda busy here.”

“You need to get out of there, Ronan.”

“Let me just get to him.”

“Ronan, now!” Gansey yells.

There’s another crack and a plank falls on top of the stack. But it stops as soon as it starts. The dust settles into his eyes and he can’t see in front of him, but he can hear the gasps and murmurs from above him. “I’m okay.”

“Ronan get out now.” 

“Shut the fuck up!”

Adam coughs. It’s harsh and pained, but it’s the best sound he’s heard because he can tell where it came from. He pulls the ax toward him. There isn’t room to swing, but he doesn’t want to anyway, not with Adam so close. He smashes it into the block of wood. It doesn’t split, but he’s got enough force to crack and splinter it. With a few more strikes, it breaks away just enough to wiggle. He pulls it back, throws it over his shoulder and there is Adam.

He’s pale, coated in a layer of dust and grime and his temple’s a mess of blood, but he’s the best thing Ronan’s ever seen. He collapses by his side, sweeping a hand over the blood clumping in his bangs. He weighs the danger of spinal injuries against the threat of another collapse. The voices screaming above him win out. He ends up pulling Adam behind him, trying to keep his head and neck as steady as possible.

Mr. Gray waits at the door and Ronan is more than happy to hand Adam over to him. He pulls Adam into his arms and immediately heads for the driveway where an ambulance is pulling up. Ronan falters back a step at the ominous task of pulling himself back out.

When he turns back to the opening, his friends are there. Noah and Gansey reach down, grabbing Ronan by the biceps and hauling him out with minimal assistance from himself. Henry hands him a bottle of water and a towel as soon as he touches the ground again. And Blue says nothing, simply throws herself at him, face into his chest, and hugs tighter than she ever had before. And he lets her.

And when he starts coughing, they help him sip from the water. When he coughs so hard he throws up, they pull him to his feet, dragging him toward the ambulance as well.

* * *

In the end, Ronan’s lungs are okay. He’s advised not to inhale large quantities of dust again. He tells the ER nurse where she can go. It’s all quite civil as far as Ronan’s concerned.

Persephone hugs Ronan as soon as she arrives at the hospital. She doesn’t say anything, just wraps her arms around him in a gesture he understands as a thank you. He doesn’t tell her it was no big deal, but he squeezes her back and hopes the message is clear.

Adam’s broken arm, three broken ribs, and moderate concussion are fairly underwhelming as far as structural collapse injuries go. “What did I tell you?” he says that evening when he’s staying awake for more than 30 seconds at a time. “I’m hard to kill.”

No one finds this quite as funny as Adam, but he’s awake and healthy enough to be laughing.

When Greenmantle arrives at the hospital, not twenty minutes before the end of visiting hours, Ronan is fully prepared to drag the man from the room, but Adam stops him. “Actually I’ve been wanting to talk. Please, Mr. Greenmantle. Come sit.” He takes the only seat in the room, facing across from Adam like a business meeting. Adam drops a folder on the stand over his bed. He pulls the papers out and spreads them out. “Here I have copies of my timesheets, dating back to last June with reminders from me to call a contractor about the shed. And you signed off on all these, didn’t you?” Greenmentle nods, Adam's apple bobbing anxiously. “What do you think a lawyer would think of these, Mr. Greenmantle?”

“Well, I — uh.”

“But I don’t really want to sue you.” He sweeps the page back up into a file and slips them back into the folder. “This isn’t some sort of moral high ground thing either. I should sue you. I just think we can solve this without any lawyers, don’t you?”

“I’m sure we can come to some sort of agreement.”

“So what do you say, you sell my friend Ronan your farm and we can all go about our lives.”

“Well I’m sure we can talk about prices, but this particular property is quite valuable. I’ll have to get a fair price for it of course.”

Gansey steps forward, clutching his own folder. This one is red and labeled “Greenmantle can suck my Dick III.”

“Actually we have some numbers here for you, sir.” He shuffles through the papers contained and pulled one from the bottom of the pile. He folds it over and presents it to Greenmantle with a flourish, that is unusually snarky for Gansey. Ronan finds himself charmed by it.

“This is considerably less than I paid, Mr. Gansey.”

Adam clears his throat. “Yes, but let’s pretend I did take you to court. If you look here, this is an estimation of what you’d be paying based on some employer negligence data I found. So all in all, I think you’ll find that to be a very fair price given what you could end up paying.”

“I see…”

“And of course, this way your wife never has to find out about any of this. She didn’t want you spending too much on the property if my memory serves me well.” It’s bold talk from someone who slurred and mumbled his way through the alphabet just a few hours ago, but he’s bouncing back fast. “Sleep on it. Come talk to me again tomorrow.”

Greenmantle shuffles out of the room, clutching the paperwork to his chest. Ronan likes his odds. 

The nurse knocks softly on the door. “Visiting hours are ending soon,” she says. “One of you can stay with him overnight if you want, but everyone else needs to head out.” Persephone scoots closer to the bed, wrapping her fingers lightly around Adam’s wrist and Ronan wouldn’t dream of trying to fight her over this.

Ronan pats Adam twice on the leg, a friendly gesture and nothing more, but fingers grip at the hem of his jacket.

“Can I talk to Ronan alone for a minute?” he asks Persephone, who nods quietly and shuffles out with the rest of the crowd. And when it’s quiet and everyone else has become a memory, Ronan pushes himself up onto the side of the bed, leaving little room for Adam to wiggle himself up into a seated position.

“Stop,” he says. “Don’t hurt yourself. Jesus, Parrish. They’re gonna kick me out for good if I knee you in the ribcage.”

“I’m real sorry, Ronan.”

“Don’t do that. Don’t apologize just cause I saved you. I would’ve done it anyway.”

He leans back, petulant as a child. “I’m not. But I went too far and I _am_ sorry.” He grips the blanket like that night under the stars before releasing it again. "What I said about Blue..." 

“You weren’t wrong. But I'm gonna do better Parrish. I want to be better.” He watches the way Adam's brow creases and for the first time in a long time, he understands why people keep going when shit sucks. If he’d known that face, scrunched and focused as he chewed on the edge of his swollen lip, was waiting on the other side, he never would’ve considered any other option. This was what people live for, this feeling here. This is what people write poems and songs and fucking dystopian YA trilogies about. There's an entire story in the shit-eating grin. And he found it. The goddamn holy grail. “I just want to see you happy.”

“And that dream thing? You were right," he says. "It turns out I’ve been paddling upstream for nineteen years without ever knowing where the creek drops off.”

“Then you draw your own map and you figure out how to make the water do what you tell it.”

“And what are your big plans, Lynch?”

“Haven’t you heard? I’m buying a farm.”


End file.
